How to edit Geometry for extrusion
Yeah, UV spheres aren't generally the start of great topo.  There are times when they'll work, but more often than not, they're just headaches.

Consider using what I call a cube-sphere:



I started out by subdividing my cube with 2 cuts (so I can get that center stripe), then used the "to sphere" operator (which I use rarely enough that I just call it from the spacebar search, so I don't know the hotkey.)  Give it the full factor (1.0) for the to-sphere, and you've basically shrinkwrapped your cube to the surface of a sphere.

I've got two levels of subdivision in that pic afterwards.  You can write your subdivision as you go and need more detail, but as always, it's smart to work from low detail to high detail, from big to small.  I think you'll find that a lot of your extrusions come more easily from starting with topo appropriate to what you're going to end up with.  (Of course, you can always retopo afterwards too.)